By: CHAPPELL, Richard (Dick) (1954-)

Acq. Number: 713

Dimensions: 30 x 122 cm, in frame 50 x 140 cm

Artwork_Medium: oil on board

Purchased: 2002

Buyer: WAKELIN, Dr Peter

Location: Newport Museum and Art Gallery

Town: Newport

Notes: Dick Chappell is an abstract painter who uses coastal and upland landscapes as reference points in deeply textured images. He lives on the edge of the moors between Brynmawr and Abergavenny, and exhibits at the Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff. His distinctive long-format pictures are like a symphony - heard in movements though a theme runs through the whole. One has to look at passages close up to see the marks and rhythms, the tiny, beautiful, incisions and abrasions, from which the image finally emerges. When seen as landscapes, they resonate with ideas of creation and apocalypse, recalling the 18th century painter of the sublime, John Martin. The title of this painting is an homage to his late father-in-law, the St Ives artist Alexander Mackenzie, who was an important influence.